Doris Salcedo’s Circles of Sorrow

This event was recorded. Please view the lecture here.

“There is no one writing in the English language today more precisely or more passionately articulating the exile’s experience than Edwidge Danticat.” —Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

In this lecture, Edwidge Danticat will reflect on the ethical and spiritual dimensions of memory and mourning, bringing her unparalleled gifts as a writer concerned with political violence and migration to respond to the Harvard Art Museums’ current special exhibition, Doris Salcedo: The Materiality of Mourning.

Danticat’s books include Breath, Eyes, Memory, an Oprah’s Book Club selection; Krik? Krak!, a National Book Award finalist; The Farming of Bones, an American Book Award winner; and The Dew Breaker. Her memoir, Brother, I’m Dying, was a 2007 finalist for the National Book Award and a 2008 winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography.

Danticat is the editor of The Butterfly’s Way: Voices from the Haitian Diaspora in the United States, The Beacon Best of 2000: Great Writing by Men and Women of All Colors and Cultures, Haiti Noir and Haiti Noir 2, and Best American Essays 2011. She has written six books for young adults and children as well as a travel narrative. She is a 2009 MacArthur Fellow and the 2016 recipient of the Toni Morrison Award.

Following the lecture, the Special Exhibitions Gallery will remain open until 8pm.

The lecture will take place in Menschel Hall, Lower Level. Please enter the museums via the entrance on Broadway.

Free admission

Complimentary parking available in the Broadway Garage, 7 Felton Street, Cambridge.

Sponsored by the Harvard Divinity School, the Latina/o Studies Working Group in the Committee on Ethnicity, Migration, and Rights (FAS), and Instituto Cervantes.

Modern and contemporary art programs at the Harvard Art Museums are made possible in part by generous support from the Emily Rauh Pulitzer and Joseph Pulitzer, Jr., Fund for Modern and Contemporary Art.